Interesting thread.

Here's my take, for what it's worth: I think noncontroversial that Twain
wrote some things about Native Americans which would today be considered
prejudicial and insensitive, to say the least. Why this was, on a
personal/experiential level, I do not know. Has it been explored in the
secondary literature? I expect so. Are these negative images
counterbalanced with any positive ones? Again, I don't know. (Nothing
leaps to mind. Anyone else think of any?)

"Huck and Tom Among the Indians, " had he completed it, might have
included a major meditation on these questions. But, all we have is the
beginning.

DDD